Bible story: Doubts raised over a Texas inaugural tradition

Belief that 199-year-old Texas Bible was Sam Houston’s no longer taken as gospel.

George W Bush called it Sam Houston’s bible. Republican Greg Abbott will be sworn in Tuesday as the state’s 48th chief executive and he’ll take the oath on the Sam Houston Bible, which is now 199 years old and has long believed to have belonged to the titan of Texas history. But a passed-down story about Sam Houston’s signature once being seen on the bible’s now-torn flyleaf has come under new scrutiny by the Texas Supreme Court, whose chief justices use the Bible to administer the oath of office. He is so idolised by Perry that last year the governor was baptised in the small creek where Houston, who struggled with alcohol, once went to be born again.

Houston’s connection to the book is fuzzier, and a big clue is long gone: the Bible’s flyleaf reads “Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas” but the bottom half is torn away.